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Ulfin Ulfinson
Physical Description Standing around 5'8", Ulfin is a rather average looking dwarf. He's neither too tall nor too short, too fat nor too skinny. In a crowd of dwarves, few would pick him for standing out for normal, physical features. Indeed, the only memorable thing about this particular dwarf is the quiet mechanical whirring that seems to accompany him everywhere. If one were to look closely, in fact, one would see that his left leg is constructed entirely of mithril. Small mechanical gears make movement possible, allowing him to extend and contract his leg. Indeed, the mechanical leg is, in all respects, completely superior to the real thing. Personality A fiercly independant engineer, Ulfin generally views people with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. He is a fairly sociable person, but simply dislikes the idea that if something isn't working, he can't just simply take it apart and remake it in the form that he desires. He is generally welcoming to people of other races, other than the gnomes. He is always suspicious that the gnomes will try to steal his inventions, and maintains that you can't trust a gnome shorter than you can throw them. He maintains that any gnome who will fly less than twenty meters in an explosion is worthy of his trust; unfortunately, any gnome that manages to fly that short of a distance is always too charred to be a friend. Other than that little 'phobia', Ulfin is a fairly implacable ally and a dangerous enemy. If he trusts you, then he will fight for you and with you to the end. If he does not, he'll wait until you either gain his trust or prove that you're not worthy of it. If you lose his trust or betray his trust, he will hunt you to the ends of Azeroth and beyond for revenge. Said revenge usually turns out to be a light tap to the head with a stick, but he does it out of principle. History A hunter by trade, Engineer by profession, Ulfin is as implaccable as a rock. And twice as stubborn after he's made up his mind. Early Life Ulfin Ulfinson, born to father Ulfin and mother Thoria was a quiet, unassuming young dwarf growing up. Coming from a well to do family of traders, Ulfin was able to recieve a modest education, moreso than afforded to most people of his social standing. The quiet and unasumming Ulfin came into contact with a group of Goblin traders, and he found his purpose in life. From an early age, the young dwarf had been interested in how things worked, and how things exploded, and why things exploded. He had always felt that his abilities were not used to their best ability, except for when he was pouring over instruction manuals, blueprints and schematics. His early life had been dominated by works of literature, and so, growing up, he had found ways of avoiding that dreaded subject. He found other things to take up his time, things like learning to hunt, exploiting his natural affinity with animals, learning to build things. Ulfin had few friends growing up, his family often moving from location to location, always trying to find somewhere to sell their goods. One of the few places that he came to regard as home was the Goblin port city of Booty Bay. There, along with the other Steamweedle Cartel port city, Ratchet, Ulfin came into contact with Goblins, engineers and expert marksmen for the first time. In his youth, he and one of his few friends, Agathor Greyhammer, would run through the streets of those two cities, finding people to teach them how to make things explode, how to shoot things, how to build rockets, guns, explosives and bullets. Those formaltive years spent in Booty Bay and Ratchet during his youth would go on to have a major impact on Ulfin when he grew to adulthood. On his twentieth birthday, Agathor blew himself to bits after a failed experiment involving three rifles, a big bomb and fourteen razor blades (And a bit of wool cloth). Ulfin and his family moved back north to Ironforge, determined to give Ulfin a steady home after his childhood. There, Ulfin learnt that he had a natural affinity with animals, often spending long days in the countryside with a wolf friend. One day, the wolf followed him home, and Ulfin had a new friend, a pet he named Agathor. By now, Ulfin had begun to make new friends in Ironforge, and had aquired new engineering schematics from family friends and other people in the city. At the age of twenty five, Ulfin moved out and established his own little home, calling it the "Agathor Institute of Research and Explosions", mining the front of it, sticking a sign saying "Ring bell if not a gnome. If gnome, walk through". However, on his fourtieth birthday, he accidently stepped onto a mine that he himself planted that morning. What followed was six months spent in a wheelchair, all the while constructing a mechanical leg for himself. When that was done, he took it to Ironforge, and found someone to graft it onto his leg stump. He was now ready to face the world again, and lovingly mined the entire front entrance of the Agathor Institute of Research and Explosions, before leaving to find himself a new vocation. The Bounty Hunter Ulfin Ulfinson spent the next twenty years of his life working as a bounty hunter. When the First and Second wars broke out, he returned to Ironforge to fight for his home. However, everytime he fought for his home, invariably, no matter how long he stayed or how many times he did his part, he would always drift away, back towards the wild where he could hunt without being heckled. He was willing to hunt any targets available, however, his favourite targets, and the targets that he went after time after time were always humanoids in nature, usually gnomes or elves. When the Third War exploded into violent reality a few years later, Ulfin Ulfinson was already in Kalimdor, as part of a dwarvern expedition into the Barrens. Here he found himself a niche, a place where he could be himself without worrying about the consequences. It was here that Ulfin Ulfinson first invented what he dubbed the "Ulfinson Cocktail", a bottle of alchohol with a bit of easily flammable cloth shoved in the top. When set alight and thrown, it would do a lot of damage. to anything in the area, with the added bonus of setting most people on fire. When the Third War died down, Ulfinson returned to the Eastern Kingdoms, and there joined up with a group called the Fighters Guild, finding a group that appreciated his talents and understood him as a person. Now he works happily for the Guild, inventing weapons and supplying ammunition to anyone who wants something from him. Out of Character Notes Ulfin isn't really based on anyone in history or literature in particular, though comparisons might be drawn between him and a number of Terry Pratchett characters. The Ulfinson Cocktail is an obvious reference to the Molotov Cocktail used by the Russians and Poles during World War Two. Agathor was the name of a dwarf pally that I had but deleted, so he lives on in Agathor, Ulfin's wolf.